Written by: Michael Smith
Published: Sunday Times 25/10/09
When Lance-Corporal David Timmins woke up in a British hospital after being badly injured by an explosion in Afghanistan, he was astonished to see his close friend, Sapper Matthew Weston, lying nearby. “When I came round, there was Matthew a few beds away,” Timmins said. “I couldn’t work out what had happened for a while.”
Timmins, 28, and Weston, 20, had been part of an army bomb disposal team. On the front line in Helmand province, Timmins’s quick thinking had helped to save Weston’s life when one of the Taliban bombs they had been trying to clear went off. Weston lost both legs and an arm.
Ten days later Timmins fell victim to another insurgent bomb that blinded him in one eye, punctured his liver and a kidney, took a chunk out of his skull and damaged his hearing.
Reunited in hospital, they found their injuries were so severe that they were barely able to communicate at first. Yet the two friends are now helping each other recover.
“Even if we couldn’t talk, we were pleased to see each other,” Timmins said. “We both knew exactly what the other had been through. We had shared so many experiences ... it was just good to have a mate close by. When we could talk, we spoke about everything under the sun except Afghanistan. Both of us wanted to concentrate on moving forwards.”
For Weston, the bond has been accentuated after he was verbally abused during hospital outings in a wheelchair with his mother and girlfriend. One youth taunted him with the sick joke: “Haven’t you forgotten something? Oh yeah — your legs.” Another told him: “If you didn’t want to be blown up, don’t go to war.”
The two soldiers met in April when they were deployed to Afghanistan and paired in a bomb disposal team. Weston, from Taunton, Somerset, a member of 33 Engineer Regiment, was a “high-risk search” expert who tracked down improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Timmins, a Glaswegian from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, was a specialist infantry escort providing cover.
Describing the close-knit unit, Timmins said: “Normally there would be one or two blokes you didn’t get on with, living so close and in such stressful conditions. But in this case it was a really good bunch of lads and everybody gelled.
“Matthew stood out because he was so keen and had such a cheeky sense of humour — it was impossible not to like Westy. He was one of the best searchers on the team. It didn’t matter how long we’d been going, he was always super-switched-on during a patrol.
“We didn’t talk about the possibility of getting hurt, although I’m sure it was in the back of everyone’s mind — it certainly was in mine. You are going into the unknown every day so you don’t dwell on the worst that can happen.”
The team had been working hard, clearing 80 bombs over a three-month period, when the first explosion went off in July on a dirt track outside Sangin. “It was tense because we knew there were likely to be devices in the ground on the road ahead of us,” said Timmins, who is married with an 18-month-old son called Rhys.
“You really had to focus hour after hour, no matter how knackered you might have been or how hot it was.
“If your mind started to wander, if you started thinking about home or anything except the task at hand, you were going to get yourself and the team into a world of trouble.”
Timmins recalls kneeling down to pass some kit to a colleague: “And then, ‘Boom!’ Shrapnel and rock debris went flying over my head. We were totally stunned for several seconds. Our captain was yelling at us not to move in case we set off secondary devices.” Then Timmins realised that Weston had been caught in the blast and was rapidly losing blood. Three of his limbs had been blown off.
“We didn’t have time to clear a path to him. Three of us just ran over and started giving him first aid. None of us were medics but we knew what to do. I concentrated on his leg because he was bleeding from his femoral artery, which was a life-threatening wound in itself.”
After a helicopter airlifted Weston to the field hospital at Camp Bastion and the adrenaline of the moment drained away, team morale sank. “In our heart of hearts, we didn’t think he’d make it,” Timmins said. “If you talked about it, there was a risk you would break down.” However, the vital work of tracking down Taliban bombs could not stop. “We had no choice but to crack on.”
When news reached the unit that Weston had been transferred to Selly Oak hospital, Birmingham, and that his condition was stable, it provided a “massive boost”.
“We felt brilliant that he’d made it and it gave us confidence that if you could get back to Bastion still breathing, you’d have a good chance whatever the injury,” Timmins said.
Little did he know that he, too, would soon be testing the skill of the army’s medics. Less than a fortnight after the blast that had seriously injured Weston, Timmins and his team became suspicious as they were clearing a road into Sangin. “I took up a fire position beside a wall to cover the team in case they were attacked.
“We still don’t know how the IED was triggered, but a device hidden in the wall initiated [exploded] and that was the last thing I knew about it.”
Timmins took the brunt of the explosion and lost four pints of blood as he was caught up in a hail of shrapnel. “The blast ‘fragged’ me from head to foot. The injuries were bad, I’ve lost my right eye and the hearing in my right ear. My face is paralysed on that side.”
Doctors at Camp Bastion managed to stabilise Timmins but he remained unconscious as he was flown back to Britain.
At Selly Oak hospital, the soldier’s wife, Zoe, kept a vigil. “I just sat at his bedside, holding his hand and telling him all about my day, talking about everything, hoping he could hear my voice,” she said.
When Timmins woke from his coma, he was surprised yet relieved to see Weston on the same ward. “Since the blasts we’ve become really good mates,” Weston said this weekend. “It’s hard to explain. He has been through the same stuff — maybe not as much — but he understands what it’s like.”
The soldiers are now both recuperating at Headley Court, an army rehabilitation centre in Surrey. “There’s loads of banter from the lads, no pity at all, no feeling sorry for yourself,” Timmins said. “It’s a massive part of life getting back to anywhere near normal. A bunch of civvies would probably find the humour a bit sick, but it’s how we cope with it.”
Weston, who has managed to move almost 100ft using prosthetic limbs, is not bothered by the insults he received from the “drunken idiots” in Birmingham. “I’m quite happy to take the piss out of myself,” he added.
“One of the first things they said to me after I regained consciousness was, ‘The bad news is you’ve lost your legs; the good thing is you’ll never suffer from athlete’s foot or ingrowing toenails again.’ You have to be positive. I survived. I’m determined to walk again.”
Timmins, who will be fitted with a false eye, hopes to make a full recovery. “I’m fantastically proud of him,” said Zoe. “His injuries are bad but I just feel very lucky that he made it back home to us. We know that some men will never be coming home from this tour.”
Posted by: Michelle Nielsen
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